CONTROL OF DEVICES THROUGH THE USE OF DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION INTERFACES

• US 20140062679A1
• Filed: 05/10/2012
• Published: 03/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Markov, Stelian, Maso, Brian
• Granted Patent: US 9,401,085 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/12.22
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 19/00 Electric signal transmission systems G08C17/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/40 Remote control systems using repeaters, converters, gateways
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/42 Transmitting or receiving remote control signals via a network
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/63 Redundant transmissions
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/93 Remote control using other portable devices, e.g. mobile phone, PDA, laptop

Abstract

A method and a device for determining what commands can be used to operate a receiving device (110) when a user operates a control device (105). After such a determination is made, a first command is transmitted to the receiving device from the control device (105) over a first communication interface and a second command is transmitted to the receiving device (110) over 5 a second communication interface. The communication interface that is selected depends on whether the control device can control the operation of the receiving device (110) with such a command directly or whether an intervening device (130/140) is required to translate the command from a first format to a second format.

Claims

1. A method for communicating commands between devices comprising:

determining whether to transmit at least one command through a first interface and a second interface to a device in response to received information from the device.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

said determining step is determined in response to the least one command to be transmitted as being an open command or a restricted command.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

transmitting said at least one command to said device over said first interface when said at least one command is determined to be an open command.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

transmitting said at least one command to said device over said second interface when said at least one command is determined to be a restricted command.

5. The method of claim 4 where said transmitting step transmits said at least one command to a server in a first format where said commands are translated by said server into a second format for transmission to said device.

6. The method of claim 5 where said first format is a Rest State Transfer (REST) format and second format is an Enhanced TV Binary Interexchange Format (EBIF) format.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein said server translates a second at least one command received from said device from said second format to a first format when said second at least one command is being transmitted to a device that transmitted said at least one command.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said first interface is a directly connected physical link between a control device and said device;

and said second interface is through a network with an intervening server that performs a translation of said at least one command from a first format to a second format.

9. A system for communicating commands between devices comprising:

a first device that transmits a first command to a second device over a first communication medium and said first device transmits a second command to said second device over a second communication medium where the communication medium selected depends on whether said first and second commands are open or restricted; and

a server which intervenes between said first device and second device through said second communication medium, where said server translates said second command received from said first device from a first format to a second format before forwarding said translated command to said second device.

10. A device that transmits commands comprising:

a means for determining whether to transmit a command to a device through a first or second interface depending on an attribute of said command;

a means for transmitting said command over a first interface; and

a means for transmitting said command over a second interface.

11. The device of claim 10 where said attribute of said command is either an open command or a restrictive command.